MAXCAPs working paper no. 23 assesses the external political integration capacity of the EU across neighbours, candidates, and new members in different regions of Eastern Europe. External integration capacity refers to the ability of the EU to prepare non-members for accession and association, respectively; political integration capacity refers to strengthening democracy and governance effectiveness in. Eastern Europeans have been moving on distinct sub-regional paths and unable to catch up with the old member states. MAXCAPs analysis of the EU impact shows a robust effect of EU accession conditionality. Once countries become members, the EU’s political integration capacity weakens. Finally, they observe that the EU has a stronger effect on governance effectiveness than on democracy as such. The report is available for download here.
Source: MAXCAP